


ain't never caught a rabbit

by nagia



Series: The House That Bark Built [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Claudia Stilinski, Beacon County K-9 Training Director Claudia Stilinski, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Claudia Stilinski Lives AU, F/M, For Want of a Nail, Genre: A Boy And His Dog (and Derek too), M/M, Scent Marking, Slow Burn, implied american gods crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:05:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1345168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third time Stiles ever met Derek Hale, he was ten years old, and sitting with a three year old SAR dog in the Sheriff's office.  And that time, Derek and Laura Hale came to stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because: what if Claudia Stilinski had lived, and what if Stiles had grown up in a house full of dogs?
> 
> Ten thousand thanks to [Dogstar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogstar) for her endless patience with my questions and double-checking my dog body language/training habits. Any mistakes made regarding K-9 officers are mine, and likely made by ignoring her commentary.

The first time Stiles saw Derek Hale, he was six years old and had been allowed to join his mother on a visit to the Hales in the Preserve. The memory was hazy, just flashes of a family of green-eyed people, and the way his mother's patrol dog, Bark, seemed really watchful and his mother had been polite, but slightly on edge.

The sunlight had been lazy, had slanted through buttery yellow curtains in the kitchen. The afternoon was long and syrupy, and as Deputy Bark had relaxed, so had his mother, and so had Stiles. And through it all, Mrs. Hale had curled her mouth into a warm smile that made the corners of her eyes dimple and leaned against her kitchen counter, sipping coffee and, every so often, tilting her head to listen to nothing at all.

* * *

Stiles didn't actually meet Derek Hale until he was eight. He'd gone with Mom when she took Bark for a walk through the Preserve. It had been a special treat; Stiles had only been two when Bark was assigned to his mother, had known the dog as long as he could remember, but Bark had been his mother's personal patrol dog. He'd been Deputy Bark since Stiles had learned to call him anything at all, and while Mom didn't generally crate Bark at home, there had always been a distance between them. Deputy Bark had never been a family pet.

Now, though, he got to walk next to Mom while she held the leash, and he understood enough of the differences between Bark and Lona, who as a trainee SAR dog was closer to a family dog, that he could ask her all sorts of questions about patrol dog training that he hadn't known to ask before.

Mom threw back her head and laughed and answered all his questions, and neither of them noticed when they moved from the Sycamore Trail to Rowan, even when they crossed the bridge over Hale Creek and started approaching Hale land. Dad said the forest was always quieter the closer people came to the Hale house, but Stiles wasn't sure why, and neither he nor his mother noticed until the boy appeared.

A teenager melted out of the trees. He had eyes as green as the leaves, and at first, he just stood off the trail, his head cocked like a listening dog's. When he was still, he looked kind of slouchy, but then he straightened up and moved toward them with his shoulders back and his chin up.

"You're on private property," the teenager said. "Do you want something with us, or are you lost?"

Bark went completely still, body tense, and stared at the older boy. He didn't get that way except around people he didn't trust.

"Easy, Bark," Mom said, "he's just one of the Hales." The only word that really mattered, Stiles knew, was _Easy_ — a command he'd been told never to try giving any of the police dogs. They'd just ignore it, and it was never good to teach a dog to ignore a command — the rest of what calmed Bark down was Mom's tone.

Bark's ears twitched as his mother spoke, and muscles relaxed, though he continued to stare at the boy. He never looked away, not for a second.

"Derek," the boy confirmed. After a moment, he said, "You're Deputy Stilinski."

"Sierzant Stilinski," Mom corrected. "Deputy Stilinski is my husband. Well, Sheriff, now. And this is my son, Stiles. I brought him to meet your mother a couple of years ago?"

"I remember," Derek said, and wrinkled his nose.

"Sorry to trouble you, Derek. We'll get back on Rowan Trail and head up toward Sycamore."

Derek only nodded. He peeled his lips in a smile, but it didn't really look like a happy smile. He cocked his head to the other side, like he was listening to nothing again, and then kind of slumped again and said, "If you want to get back to your car, I can show you a shortcut."

"How do you know where we parked?" Mom asked, and Stiles could hear the easy amusement in her tone.

"There are only three lots that lead close to Sycamore," Derek said.

Bark didn't stop staring at Derek all the way through the Preserve.

* * *

That year, things got weird. He met Scott, and it was nice to have a friend. But Mom started to seem more distant, often staring into space, and sometimes telling him about crazy dreams over pancakes on Sunday mornings. Sometimes she lapsed into Polish without seeming to realize it — once to Scott, who had stared blankly at her until Dad translated — and sometimes she seemed to get nervous for no reason.

It was weird, but they could live with it. Until her staring-into-space episodes got worse, and worse than that, showed up in front of the Hales.

* * *

"Hello, Derek," Mom said. A beam of sunlight that speared across the Hale house's shaded porch turned the glossy brown hair of her into an almost golden halo, and made Derek's eyes look almost blue. "Your mother wanted me to bring Bark by, compare dog training techniques."

Derek nodded and stepped aside, swinging the door wide open. "Come on in."

Stiles followed his mother and Bark into the house. Bark stared at Derek, before sitting neatly at Mom's feet. He turned his nose up and sniffed the air. Stiles waited a moment before copying the gesture; he knew he didn't smell all the things that Bark could, but it was nice to see what places smelled like, sometimes. Dad said it was good training for deductive reasoning.

He smelled oranges and spices, mostly, but there was something like vanilla or baking cookies coming from the back, where he guessed the kitchen was. The place must have been cleaned pretty recently, and all those shiny hardwood floors mopped.

After a moment, somebody came pounding down the stairs. Stiles turned to look and see who it was — Bark only turned his head — and found himself staring at one of the biggest men he'd ever seen. He had shaggy brown hair and blue eyes, and the same cheekbones as Derek, but he was older. Closer to Mom's age, or maybe even a little older.

"Claudia?" At his mother's nod, the man nodded back, but didn't offer his hand to shake. "Kevin Hale, Derek's father."

"I've seen you around with the volunteer fire crew," Mom said, smiling. "Nice to meet you. This well-behaved gentleman is Deputy Bark, and the little monster behind me is my son, Stiles."

"Nice to meet you," Stiles said, and didn't offer his hand, either.

Mr. Hale curved his lips into a small smile that didn't even show any teeth and nodded at Stiles. He didn't approach Bark at all, unlike a lot of people did when they met what they thought was a big friendly police dog. "Did you want to get started? I think Talia wanted to use the back yard."

Mom nodded. "Lead the way, Mr. Hale."

"Kevin, please," Mr. Hale said, but he turned and led them through the house. Derek went with them, and he watched Stiles as closely as Bark watched him.

The backyard was open and airy and smelled like lemongrass. Mrs. Hale was sitting on a beaten wood porch chair that had chew marks on it. A man who had blue eyes and brown hair sat beside her. They both had their heads tilted the same way, and they both wore the same amused expression.

"Claudia," Mrs. Hale said, "so glad you could make it. I see you've met my partner. This is my brother, Peter. My daughter, Laura, and my older son, Phillip, should be joining us sometime soon."

"And Cora?" Mom said. "I hear she's very interested in law enforcement."

"Cora," Mrs. Hale's brother said, "might as well be a K-9 herself. I doubt she'll be joining us today."

That didn't make any sense, but Derek snorted a chuckle, and Stiles shared a 'these people are weird' sort of look with his mother.

At first, Mom just talked to Talia about Bark. How the name on his papers was Arkadiasz and he'd come from the the Sierzant kennel in Poland. How a lot of his basic commands had been in Polish, and because she spoke the language, she'd kept them up. So he knew things like _siedź_ — Bark sat primly on his haunches — and _pilnuj_ — Bark stared at Peter, who his mother had been pointing at — and a whole bunch of other weird commands.

"He doesn't accept food from strangers or without my permission, and he doesn't generally obey commands from people who aren't me. That's pretty basic."

"What's a more advanced command?" Peter asked when Bark stopped staring at him and instead turned his gaze on Mom. 

"A lot of the patrol stuff is actually fairly simple," Mom said. "But I don't mind showing you one of the techniques we use to teach search-and-rescue. Stiles, do you want to play the victim?"

"Sure," Stiles said. "Mrs. Hale, Mr. Hale, can I vanish in your yard for a sec?" At their tolerant nods, he headed across the back yard and around the corner of a shed to crouch by a dropped baseball mitt. 

From the porch, he heard Mom call, "Track Stiles."

After several moments, Bark trotted around the corner of the shed — shouldering his way through thick, tall grass — and barked at him, then turned around and dashed back to the porch.

After a few more moments, he could hear Bark dashing through the yard again, and his mom following more sedately after. Bark kept coming up to him, woofing, and then turning around and running up to wherever Mom was.

Mom turned the corner around the shed, then frowned. "Stiles? I didn't hear you ask the Hales if you could go in the shed."

"I'm not in the shed, Mom," Stiles said.

"Stiles, you know you can't help me with demos unless you follow the rules. And I can't believe I'm having to tell you that you can't just go into people's property without asking," his mother told the doors of the shed. She looked down and apparently saw the padlock, which she reached out and touched.

Stiles had never watched his mother be a cop before, but now he could see thoughts flying across her face as she tried to figure something out.

"Stiles! Get out from under that building! You've had your fun, kiddo."

"No, Mom, I'm right here." Stiles felt his heart start to pound, and something cold flooded down the back of his neck. "Mom, are you okay?"

But Mom ignored him. After a moment, when Stiles didn't crawl out from under the building he wasn't hiding under, his mother turned to Bark and said, "Bark, gdzie jest Stiles? Szukaj Stiles."

Bark went right to Stiles — right at the edge of the building — and then went back to Mom.

Mom patted Bark on the head, then dug her fingers under his collar and scritched him there, and then banged on the shed door. "Szczepan Bronisław Stilinski, come out here!"

Bark whined for a moment, apparently able to see that Mom was giving commands to both of them that didn't make any sense.

"Mom! I'm not _under_ the stupid shed! I 'm standing right —" And then he noticed that his mother's gaze never once turned to him. Like he wasn't there, like she wasn't hearing him. He swallowed again, and felt his heart start to beat even faster. He called out, and hated how thin and scared his voice sounded, "Mrs. Hale? Mr. Hale? I Think something's wrong."

Mrs. Hale came around the shed in an instant, with Mr. Hale and Derek not far behind her. "Stiles?"

Mom turned toward her, but she didn't seem to really register who they were. She gave them a nervous smile and said, "I'm sorry. Stiles is pretty creative, but he doesn't usually do this."

Mrs. Hale's eyes flicked to Stiles, while Mr. Hale just stared at Mom.

"Stiles," Mrs. Hale asked, very carefully, "are _you_ okay?"

"I'm fine," Stiles said. 

After a minute, his mother snapped, "Stiles, answer Talia."

"Claudia," Mrs. Hale said, her voice slow and kind of exaggeratedly calm, "Stiles did answer me. He's standing right next to you, in front of the shed."

His mother turned to look for him, but her face was blank. She didn't see him, Stiles realized, and kind of wanted to sink into the ground. Or throw his arms around her. But Dad said she'd seen some bad things in the Coast Guard, and it wasn't always good to touch her when she couldn't see him.

"He's not there," she whispered. "Talia, I don't — he's not —"

"Both of you, please stay calm. Stiles, has your Mother, I don't know, had a bad fall recently? Been sick somehow? Has this ever happened before?"

"No," Stiles said. "I — I think we should call Dad. He'll know what to do." Dad pretty much always knew what to do.

"Of course. Why don't we all go to the kitchen, and I'll dial the Sheriff's department," Mrs. Hale said with exaggerated calm. She reached out and touched Mom by the arm, leading her away. Stiles dug his hands into Bark's collar, let Bark's drive to follow his handler pull him along.

Stiles couldn't help staring at the space on his mother's utility belt where she kept her gun. Derek walked close to him, let their arms brush together.

Once they were in the kitchen, Mrs. Hale gently talked his mother into sitting down, poured her a glass of water, and then picked up the phone. She dialed a number, and then said, "Yes, this is Talia Hale, and I'd like to speak to the Sheriff, please. I'm calling about Claudia and Stiles."

* * *

Stiles sat next to his father in the waiting room. His father had clipped the lead to Bark's collar and held the leash's strap loosely around his wrist. It was hard to believe how good Bark was being, when every human Bark cared about even a little was upset.

Stiles wanted desperately to break the silence that had fallen between him and Dad, but for once, he couldn't think of anything to say. They'd gone over just what had happened at the Hale house twice, and neither time had made much sense to either of them. And neither of them wanted to think too hard about what it meant that Mom was full-on hallucinating, and had been for weeks — that had been why she would go glassy-eyed and silent.

He wanted to say he was scared. But Dad was scared too. And some part of Stiles was convinced that it was his fault. He was the one his mother had been unable to see — maybe she hadn't wanted to, or maybe he'd done something that had caused it.

So he sat quietly next to Dad and reached over to dig his fingers into the space between Bark's collar and his fur.

After a few minutes, Mrs. Hale walked into the waiting room. She turned unerringly toward Dad, like she'd known where he was before she'd even walked in the door.

"Sheriff," she said as she made her way toward them. Her voice was soft, soothing, and Stiles not only expected her to tell them that it would all be okay, but also believed she would be right. Mrs. Hale would make sure everything was okay.

"Just Wieńczysław when I'm off duty, Mrs. Hale."

"Talia," Mrs. Hale said. "Is she conscious?" Dad nodded, and Mrs. Hale asked, "Lucid?"

Dad hesitated. "We think so, but she seemed lucid earlier."

Mrs. Hale nodded. "If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to her. Before the… they're running an MRI?"

"They've got both a CT and an MRI scheduled. The CT's up first." Dad's voice was dry, hoarse.

Mrs. Hale nodded, then reached forward and pressed her hand to Dad's shoulder. "Everything is going to be fine, Wieńczysław." She said his name totally right, like only family could, and gave them both a smile that was as comforting, in a weird way, as it was mysterious.

And then she was gone, and Stiles wondered just what Mrs. Hale could have to talk to his mother about.

* * *

Stiles didn't get to sit in with the doctors and his parents when the results from the CT and the MRI came back. Instead, he sat out in the waiting room with Deputy Bark and Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Hale talked to him for a few minutes, just normal boring stuff, but always changed the subject when he asked about whatever she'd wanted to talk to his Mom for.

After a while, she held up one hand, palm out and fingers splayed, and tilted her head. She looked like she was listening to nothing at all. With her dark hair and green eyes, the gesture made her look like Derek.

"Your mother will be fine, Stiles," Mrs. Hale said, and rested a palm on his head but didn't answer when he asked her how she knew.

After another fifteen minutes, his parents emerged from the consult room. His father was stonefaced. His mother looked tense but relieved, and beckoned Stiles closer.

* * *

When he got home, he got on the family computer and used Dogpile, AskJeeves, and Google to search for everything he could find about encephalitis.

* * *

Mom got better. It took six months and three MRI exams, and doses and doses and doses of antibiotics, even after the doctors let her come home. Her pill bottles seemed to multiply like his did, though she went to cognitive rehab, not just plain old therapy like she insisted Stiles should.

Mom got better. She worked with Lona at home, and went to work with Bark at her side, and gradually, gradually, Dad's shoulders relaxed.

Once or twice a month, Mom would take Bark and Lona out into the Preserve, and Stiles wasn't allowed to go. She always said she was visiting the Hales, but why Stiles couldn't go with her, she never explained. He never quite shook the feeling that it was because she'd been unable to see him at the Hale house the day she'd been diagnosed, that it was because he'd been bad, or she was tired of him.

* * *

The third time Stiles ever met Derek Hale, he was ten years old, and sitting with a three year old Lona in the Sheriff's office. He'd seen the thick plumes of black smoke that streamed up from the Preserve, had seen the fire trucks and the ambulances and the squad cars racing off for the deep woods, lights and sirens all blaring.

Eventually, the chaos seemed to settle down. His mother swept through the doors into the department, Bark walking at her side, with two big kids in front of her. Stiles put the dark hair, the red-rimmed eyes, their sickly pale faces together with the smoke from the Preserve and felt his stomach clench.

The Hale house had caught fire.

The two kids — one of them was Derek, he realized as they neared, but he didn't recognize the other, a girl — both looked completely wrung out. The girl clung to Derek's hand, and Derek was shaking.

Stiles dug around in Dad's desk for a minute, grabbing a package of Reese's and another package of Riesens from Dad's "secret" candy stash, then clicked his tongue and stood. Lona followed him as he headed out of the office and into the hall where they had collapsed into two chairs, side by side, even leaning their heads to rest on each other.

He offered the candy to Derek and his sister. "The fire in the Preserve, was that your house?"

The girl looked over at him, and Stiles realized that even though she was kind of short, she probably a grown up, or almost one. Her eyes were the same green as Derek's, and her eyebrows, which were thick arches, hooked down angrily as she asked, "How did you know there was a fire?"

"I could see the smoke from here," Stiles said, and shook the candy. "And I heard the fire trucks head out that way."

She graciously accepted that explanation, but then looked at the Reese's with clear scorn on her face. "Do you really think _candy_ is going to help?"

"Uh, no; I'm not stupid, geez. But sometimes having sugar in your bloodstream can make things feel a little more okay, and I read online that chocolate stimulates endorphin release, and endorphins make you happy. It's a stress reducer. Clinically proven."

Derek looked at the bag of Riesens for a moment. His fingers twitched like he was thinking about reaching for it, but then he stopped and frowned really hard. 

Derek's sister looked at him, then at the bag, and then sighed and grabbed the chocolate out of Stiles's hands. She tore the bag open with a quick wrench of her hands and held out a Riesen to her brother.

"Laura," Derek said, quietly, voice flat and listless.

"Eat it," she said, but the argument ended when Stiles's mother unlocked a room next to the Sheriff's office and jerked her head toward it. 

"Miss Hale, Mr. Hale, if I could speak to the two of you for a moment?"

The Hales stood and walked across the hall, followed Mom into the room. She closed the door. Stiles counted to ten on a slow count, then ducked over to sit outside the closed door.

"Laura," his mother was saying. "I _know_. I have for two years."

"Mom offered you...?" Laura's voice was wondering.

"Yes. It never proved necessary, but I know exactly what responsibility has dropped onto your shoulders today, and I know exactly why you're at risk, why you would be reluctant to trust... someone like me. That's why I'm opening up my home to you."

"We shouldn't trust her," Derek all but snarled. His voice lisped a little, like he maybe had something in his mouth, or like his teeth were suddenly too big. 

"Mom did," Laura replied.

Derek snapped back immediately: "Mom trusted Deaton. Where's he?"

"Well, Mom trusted Deputy Stilinski even more than she trusted Deaton, and Deputy Stilinski _is_ here. Besides, we have to stay in Beacon Hills until Uncle Peter wakes up..." Laura paused a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was very, very soft. "Or doesn't."

Derek was still lisping a little bit when he asked, "And we should stay with — with —"

"Who's going to burn down the Sheriff's house?" The tone was flat, maybe even a little brutal. But Laura had a point.

Mom sounded both wary and interested when she asked, "You're sure the fire was arson?"

"It was the middle of the day," Laura replied. "So why did nobody put it out, or at least get — get the younger kids out of the house, or —"

Mom's voice turned gentle. "I understand, and most of the fire crew on scene agree with you. The Sheriff and I will keep an eye on the investigation."

"Okay. And, I — thanks, for the offer. You're sure your husband won't mind?"

Stiles could all but hear the arch to his mother's brow when she said, "Leave my husband to me, Laura."

"Derek and I don't really have anywhere else to go. I… _we_ accept."

* * *

"Well," Dad said, when Mom told him of her offer. "Looks like we're getting the full size bed out of storage a little early."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, tremendous thanks to Dogstar for checking my dog behavior/body language. Any errors about K-9 units are entirely mine, and probably made because I ignored her good advice.

Stiles watched as his father assembled the bedframe on the far side of what had, until now, been Stiles's room. From today on, until Laura and her brother got back on their feet, Stiles would share with Derek.

He'd never shared a room before. And not with somebody who was practically grown already. Dad had promised it would be in no way weird, but that was either a lie or his parents being stupidly optimistic. It was going to be weird. Why couldn't Derek just keep his stuff in Stiles's room and sleep on the couch? Why couldn't he share a room with his sister?

"Stiles," Mom said, poking her head around the doorway. "If you're not going to help your father with the bed, then you can pack up the parts of the dresser you won't be using anymore."

"Mom, if I have to share a room," Stiles said, in Polish so Derek couldn't understand him complaining, "can't I at least have one of the dogs?"

"If you leave the door open at night, we'll move Bark's crate to the foot of your bed," Mom said, also in Polish, and then shooed him toward the dresser.

Stiles went.

* * *

The first two weeks were awful. It wasn't exactly because he was sharing a room with Derek. It was more because his family was sharing a house with Derek and Laura. They had basically nothing to their names, and they'd both lost pretty much their entire families. It wasn't exactly fun, and Stiles wasn't really sure how to handle it. How to talk to them — when usually he talked to everyone, and didn't care what anyone's damage was. 

But he still couldn't quite shake the feeling that what had happened at the Hale House the day his mother had been diagnosed had somehow been his fault. He'd been trying to be better, be a kid his mother wouldn't want to forget about, and that meant finding a way to be nice to the Hales without pissing them off.

Laura seemed to be a big giant nervous ball of energy. Like if she ever stopped moving, she'd have to _think_ , and if she thought about anything, she'd break down. She seemed mostly okay, but brittle, and she would stop in the middle of sentences to avoid mentioning any dead family member by name. 

Derek seemed to ignore them. He worked out a lot, going on runs around the neighborhood, doing chin ups, sit-ups, crunches. Dad dragged his old weights out of the garage — he didn't lift anymore, said he'd stopped around the time Mom had been made Training Director at the Department — and Derek started in with those, too. When he wasn't working out, he was totally silent, either sitting on his bed in Stiles's room or sitting on the couch, staring kind of creepily at nothing.

What was worse, his mother knew and trusted the dogs, understood that dogs sometimes made judgments about people, and understood how their dogs showed it. And she always, always trusted those impressions at least a little. Dogs could smell and hear a lot of things that people couldn't.

None of that would have been a problem, if only either of the dogs in the house had liked the Hales. Lona acted like they scared her, constantly trying to avoid or ignore them, and whining and slouching when they got near her. It was like she was begging them not to hurt her. Bark, though — and this was the worst of all, because Mom and Bark were partners — Bark just stared endlessly at them. He never growled, he never snapped, but he liked to put himself between Mom and the Hales, and for two straight weeks he never let up his watch.

* * *

And then Derek had a nightmare. On movies and television, people having nightmares always sat straight up in bed when they were over, or talked. But Derek just tossed and turned in his sheets, and made hurt animal noises low in his throat that reminded Stiles of when Mom first brought Lona home and she'd been scared to be alone.

So he rolled out of bed. The movement made Bark look away from Derek. The puppy-like whimpers had at least caught Bark's attention, and when Stiles patted Derek's larger bed a couple of times, Bark was perfectly willing to stand, stretch, and then clamber aboard. He let out one of those whole-face yawns that was all teeth and was also kind of a whine, then bumped his nose against Derek.

Stiles thought for about a minute, though the minute seemed to drag forever, before he joined Bark and Derek. He didn't bother trying to wake the older boy, just shushed him and said stupid things like _it's okay_ and rubbed Derek's back and shoulders. He settled with his back to the wall, and slowly, the hurt noises went quiet, and Derek slept again.

When Stiles woke, he and Derek were side by side with their backs to the wall, and he had leaned so that only Derek's shoulder kept his head sort of upright, and Derek was kind of leaning back. Bark lay across Stiles's lap, with one huge paw trapping Derek's legs.

The sun was buttery yellow outside the curtains, and thin slats of light cut his eyes.

* * *

Things got easier after that. Bark seemed to decide that Derek, at least, wasn't dangerous. He stopped staring at him, and Lona took most of her cues from Bark, so she stopped avoiding him. They still both seemed to dislike Laura, but Laura didn't seem to mind at all. Laura was still brittle and trying to pretend everything was fine.

And Derek let up with the creepy 'staring at nothing' routine, for which both Stiles and Dad were grateful. Derek's eyes had never glazed over, but the absent, pulled-inside expression had kind of reminded them both of the way Mom had hallucinated during the summer a couple of years ago. Instead, when Derek got done with his running or his crunches or his lifting, he would go into Mom and Dad's study, take something from their shelves, and sit down somewhere with it. Usually he picked thick, heavy books that had the word CRIMINOLOGY on them, but sometimes he picked bound magazines that didn't have any pictures, and sometimes he plucked out some of Dad's books about the law.

He even started actually talking. He was still quiet, never really saying much. But things like "Do you mind?" when somebody blocked his light while he was reading and "Please pass the kopytka" (not that he or Laura ever said any of the Polish quite right) at dinner were a lot better than total silence. He'd answer Dad's questions about what he thought of what he read. Dad seemed to really like that Derek was showing an interest in the books, and every now and then gave Stiles the kind of significant look that meant 'If you ever want to be a good deputy, you'll do this too, someday.'

Sometimes Derek said things that were maybe important. But Stiles was pretty sure that the most important thing about Derek, besides the fact that he obviously didn't think he deserved anything, was that he and Laura both tilted their heads like they were listening to nothing — and always heard _something_.

* * *

The third week after the Hales moved into the house, Mom and Dad took Laura out on the back porch. The dogs usually had the run of the back yard, but Mom shut Bark and Lona in the house with Stiles and Derek. Dad's face looked flinty and serious as he calmly shut the door behind them all.

Stiles plopped down next to Derek, who had curled himself onto the couch in the dining room. He waited a couple of moments, until Derek had looked up at him and then back down to his criminology journal, and then Stiles reached out and pulled the journal out of Derek's hands.

"What are they talking about?" Stiles asked.

Derek's eyes widened for just a second before he replied, "Do I look like I'm out there?"

"You can hear them," Stiles said. "They're a lot closer than Dad's car, and you and Laura both can hear Dad's car from the end of the block when you sit there."

Derek looked at him without saying anything. He wore a look like he was trying to decide something, like he was trying to figure out how Stiles knew what he could hear.

"Do your stupid head tilt thing if you have to," Stiles said. "I wanna know what they're all talking about."

"College," Derek said. "Laura got accepted into NYU. She says she doesn't want to go at all. They're trying to talk her into going to Berkeley."

"Cool. I hope she does. Maybe you can stay with us if she stays that close." Stiles look at him for a moment, tilting his head a little, too, as he thought. "Are you ever going to go back to school?"

Derek looked down, crossing his arms like he was cold. Which was silly; neither Hale ever got too hot or too cold. "I don't know."

"Maybe they'll let you do home school during the summer." The Hales had missed the last two weeks of the high school classes, but where Derek hadn't gone at all, Laura had gone in for her exams. Something about a deal cut with the school guidance counselor. She was supposed to walk at graduation in two weeks, but Stiles didn't think she would do it.

"I could just drop out and get my GED," Derek said.

"You're not eighteen yet, and Dad takes truancy very seriously."

"What's he going to do, have a stern talk with my parents?" Derek's mouth was a flat, angry line. His eyes had narrowed, and he was sitting up straight with his shoulders back. He glared straight into Stiles's eyes, and Stiles couldn't help lifting his chin and glaring right back.

"If you stay with us, he'll probably just make you go. Drive you in the back of the squad car every morning."

"So maybe I won't stay with you."

"I hope you do," Stiles said, quietly.

Even more quietly, Derek asked, "Why?"

Stiles was pretty sure that was important.

* * *

Three days later, Mom took Derek and Laura out to the Preserve for some kind of overnight camping trip. They took Bark with them, and even though Stiles's room looked and sounded almost exactly like it had a couple of months ago, when he'd been a pretty okay sleeper, Stiles felt restless. His room wasn't right without Bark or Derek. He was too used to Bark's whuffles and snores, the way Derek tossed and turned (but threw pillows and Legos if Stiles tossed or turned too much), the reassuring warmth of a room with more than one person in it.

He didn't sleep right. It was kind of comforting to see Dad drink three cups of coffee the next morning, so tired that he just turned on the electric kettle and scooped coffee into the French press.

"Can I have one?" He asked.

"Take your Ritalin first," Dad replied, and when Stiles had washed his morning pill down with some water, Dad poured some coffee into a mug, then filled the rest of the mug with milk.

At least it wasn't as nasty as the station coffee, which Stiles had to pour lots of packets of sugar into if he wanted to drink any. He remembered watching Deputy Nowak dunking a donut into the station stuff black, no sugar or anything, and wondering how he did it.

* * *

The letter from Berkeley came that Friday. Laura opened it the minute she saw it, but she read it aloud to them all at the dinner table.

Mom flickered her gaze at Laura, then looked meaningfully at the way Dad smiled into his pork chops.

Derek used his words.

Derek said, "May I be excused?"

* * *

By Saturday, Derek had stopped talking again. He pulled the blankets off Laura's bed and wrapped himself up in them cross-legged, so he looked like a cross between a burrito and what happened when Stiles tried to roll a pierogi.

Laura retaliated by doing a magician's sheet trick right out from under him.

Derek thumped back onto his sheetless bed and glared balefully at the world from his blanket-pierogito. Bark sat on the floor by his bed and stared up at him, tail thwacking against the floor hopefully.

* * *

During Sunday lunch, Laura finally snapped and said, "Fine, Derek, I won't go to Berkeley. What do you want to do, live in a shitty off-campus apartment with me while I study at NYU? At least if you stay here, you won't have to transfer high schools."

Derek flinched and then ducked his head. He slouched just like Lona did whenever Laura went near her, his shoulders slumping and chin nearly touching his chest.

He wasn't back to talking by Monday. And he didn't even bother with reading or working out. He just curled in on himself in bed and stared at nothing.

Later that night, when Stiles had given up on really sleeping and just pretended to sleep, drawing in deep, measured breaths, Laura snuck into their room. She closed the door behind her, which was against the rules, but then Stiles heard the springs on Derek's bed squeak.

"It's depression, isn't it?" Laura whispered.

After a long silence, Derek replied, "No."

"What the hell is wrong with you, Der?"

"I could have been in the house. I _should_ have been in the basement."

"I'd be alone. A pack of one," Laura said.

Derek didn't say anything back, but it was one of those heavy silences that meant he was thinking something awful. Laura must have felt it, too, because there was a soft smacking sound, like she'd rapped Derek's cheek or cuffed him on the back of the head.

"Do you really want me to go ahead with NYU? It'll be just the two of us, all the way across the country. No allies, no resources. Just us. Why do that when we don't have to?" Laura's voice began to tremble, and she stopped talking for a moment. Stiles heard her swallow in the darkness, but the break didn't stop her voice from breaking as she said, "It's going to be so _hard_ , Derek. Why make it harder than it has to be?"

"Go. Just — come back," Derek whispered. "Please. I'm sorry, I know I don't — I don't even, I shouldn't — but I can't. Not alone." 

"Of course," Laura said, and her voice was muffled, as if she'd pressed her mouth up against his pillow or his head while she was talking to him. "Every weekend. I promise."

Derek didn't say anything. Laura brushed her knuckles against the back of Stiles's head before she left. She left the door open.

* * *

That Wednesday, Mom and Dad took Stiles out to Hoedekin's. It was the diner on the southernmost edge of town, about as far away from the Preserve as anyone could get and still be in Beacon Hills, and close to the foothills they'd named the town for back after the Gold Rush. The diner's red neon sign buzzed and glowed, though it looked kind of dim in the early evening.

Stiles liked to look at his reflection in the gold ceiling, thought the Coca-Cola wallpaper and Coke-bottle salt and pepper shakers and Coca-Cola polar bear clock were funny because Mr. H only served coffee and Pepsi and some kind of beer from someplace called Hildesheim that Dad really liked.

"Stiles," Mom said, after Mr. H brought out a plate of some kind of chocolate cake and the homemade syrup he called frog-squeezin' sauce, "your father and I have something to talk to you about."

Dad pushed the cake at Mom, and Mom cut some of her piece away and gave it to Stiles.

Stiles just nodded. He got the feeling that he knew what was coming.

"We've been talking to Derek and Laura," Mom said. "And Laura's decided to stay in California."

"She's going to go to Berkeley." Stiles said. At his parents' surprised looks, he asked, "What? I'm smart enough to get in there, too, someday, you know."

Dad gave him a crooked smile. "Yeah, kid. You kind of are. Do you know what all this means for Derek?"

"He's going to stay," Stiles said with a sigh. He poured the frog sauce on his chocolate cake and took a big bite. It was the best chocolate cake i all of Beacon Hills. Even his mom couldn't make chocolate cake like this. "We're going to keep sharing a room, right?"

"At least until Laura is ready to get a place of her own," Mom said.

"Are they gonna fix their house?"

"I don't think so," Dad said. "But maybe. Derek could be staying with us for a year or more. Are you okay with that?"

"Derek's okay," Stiles said.

Mom snorted out a laugh. "Derek is definitely _not_ okay right now, Stiles."

Stiles shrugged. "He thinks he should have died in the fire. But he's never been mean to me."

His parents both looked stricken. His mother showed it a little more — with Dad, Stiles read it mostly in the way his eyebrows moved — but neither of his parents really had expressive faces. Mom's could have been, maybe; it was in all the old pictures of her. But sometime between when she'd been Derek's age and now she'd learned to close her face off. Stiles guessed it happened in the Coast Guard.

"He thinks what?" Dad's voice wound tight like a string.

"He said he should have been in the basement with everyone else."

"When did he say that?" Mom leaned forward on the table, chocolate cake totally forgotten.

"Couple nights ago. Laura came in and talked to him when they thought I was asleep."

Dad wiped his hand across his face. "Kid, you're a menace. Claudi, looks like we have some things to discuss with those two."

* * *

When they got home, Laura was sitting in the living room, reading one of the criminology books Derek had put down. She looked up at them, momentarily wrinkled her nose, and then went back to her book.

When Stiles went back to his room to change for bed and maybe find one of his summer reading books, Derek looked up. First he just wrinkled his nose, which made him look even more like Laura, but then his whole face scrunched up, like he'd smelled something really, really bad.

"You stink," Derek said. Stiles sniffed first his hands, then his arms, but he smelled mostly normal to himself. Maybe a little like chocolate from where he'd spilled frog sauce on himself. "Go take a shower or something."

Stiles just stared at Derek, tried to say how completely weird the older boy was being without actually saying that he was being a weirdo. He was tempted to go ask Dad if he smelled bad, but it would be easier to just go take a shower.

So he grabbed his pajamas and padded off toward the bathroom.

Derek's nose wrinkled again when Stiles came back and tucked his dirty clothes into the hamper. The older boy stared at him for a few moments, before he crossed the room and dug in his own laundry until he found one of his shirts. He balled it up and threw it at Stiles.

"Put that on."

Stiles sighed and switched shirts.

* * *

On Thursday and Friday, Derek went to school to take his exams.

* * *

That Saturday, they all attended Laura's graduation.

Derek slept in Laura's room that night, and at breakfast the next morning, everybody pretended not to notice the bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes and snuffly noses.

* * *

By Sunday afternoon, Scott was back in Beacon Hills, visiting Mrs. Delgado for the first couple of weeks of summer.

Derek and Laura didn't really seem to notice Scott one way or another, at first. Laura got kind of huggy with Mom when Scott was around. Derek mostly just scowled and read his books. But every time Scott left — or every time Stiles came home from the Delgado house — Derek would wrinkle his nose, insist that Stiles smelled bad, and make him take a shower and put on one of Derek's shirts.

It was weird enough that Stiles almost went to Dad or Laura about it. But what was he supposed to say? Maybe Derek was actually normal and he was being the weird one.

...okay, no. No, if a month spent around the Hales had taught him anything, it had taught him that the Hales were completely weird. Mom liked them, and Dad was pretty used to people just being weird, and at least Bark and Lona liked Derek. Why they didn't like Laura, Stiles still wasn't sure.

They were probably kind of nuts, but Stiles would be completely nuts if Mom and Dad and Bark and Lona had died in a house fire. So it wasn't even like he could blame them.

* * *

The summer passed in a blur. Stiles spent most of his time either doing his summer reading or hanging around with Scott. The rest of his time, he and Derek took Lona and Bark for runs in the Preserve. 

Dad took Derek to get his summer reading books for junior year. Mom made Derek study for the SAT and ACT, and then she got him workbooks for AP Statistics and AP Physics. (Stiles cracked the statistics workbook open and could have cried at how weird and complicated it looked. Then he immediately demanded that Derek use the scanner in Dad's office to copy the stuff he worked on.) And all the while, Derek kept up with his ridiculous workouts and criminology reading.

* * *

Laura moved into her dorm in Berkeley in August. Mom and Dad bundled Stiles and Bark into Dad's Jeep at like five thirty one morning; Stiles took a sleepy sort of glee at watching Derek stagger toward Laura's Camaro and nearly get a face full of cardboard box. But he got the last box settled in her gorgeous car and then folded himself into the front seat.

"How's he gonna fit on the way home?" Stiles asked.

"Shh," Mom said, and smacked a wet kiss onto Stiles's forehead.

Stiles slept through the drive down to Berkeley. He helped Dad and Derek carry Laura's boxes, while Laura laughed and flitted around, and it took a lot of watching to see that Laura wasn't quite as happy as she was pretending to be.

Derek slumped and folded in on himself on the way home.

* * *

The first night Laura was gone, Stiles could have sworn he heard wolves howling in the Preserve. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was only coyotes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interview went so well that I might have a job. So here! Have another chapter of this fic, and I'll get back to work on [cast our fevers in stone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1161925) and [even bad wolves can be good](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1123156)
> 
> Next for this fic: a two-year timeskip, and whatever it takes to bring the fic up to the start of TWS1.


	3. Chapter 3

The downstairs smelled of whatever Laura had put in the oven — mostly like something warm, faintly floral, and probably not cookies — and it was actually kind of driving Stiles crazy, especially since Laura had refused to even let him see what she was using their oven for. Lona sat upright in Dad's recliner and stared at her, while Bark sat at Stiles's feet, also staring at Laura, and desperately needed a bath.

Rather than answer any questions at all, Laura only looked seriously at Stiles from the other end of the couch, pale eyes an even more vivid green thanks to the eyeshadow that reminded him a little of a peacock.

"I thought your mom worked night shifts on Saturdays," she said.

Stiles shrugged. "Remember Glory? Mom's got dayshifts so she can train her in the actual kennel and not just at home."

Bark's ears perked at the sound of Glory's name. In the last couple of months, he'd mostly come to associate the sound with the rambunctious puppy who would do anything for a tennis ball, and as far as Stiles or Mom could tell, had developed kind of a liking for how weird she was — Glory being weird meant Bark got Stiles's attention and praise. He usually sought her out when she was in the house.

"Huh," Laura said. After a moment, she sighed, and said, "Okay, once my verbena's dried, I'll get out of your hair." She flashed a lopsided grin at him and palmed his buzzcut, noogieing him with the heel of her hand. "Just let your Mom know I had something to show her."

"You know, cell phones exist. You could, like, leave her a message. Or text her. We _have_ a texting plan." After a moment, reality caught up with him, and Stiles demanded, "Wait, what do you wanna show Mom but not me?"

Laura's expression shut down into something stern and hard, made even more intimidating by her short hair. "You're staying out of this one, Stiles. I don't care what you _think_ you know, this is too dangerous for you."

"But you'll drag my Mom into it, when she doesn't even have a real patrol dog."

"Neither do you," Laura said, and stood. Bark stared at her as she went, and Lona even peeled her lips back to show her teeth. Laura ignored both dogs, because ignoring distressed German Shepherds was such a good idea, and headed into the kitchen. 

"And why are you drying verbena in our oven?"

The kitchen door swung closed, and Laura didn't answer. Maybe her kickass "totally temporary" loft didn't have an oven.

* * *

When Mom made it home, she released Glory from her lead with a firm, "Go outside," then passed through the living room to the office, already absently unbuttoning her holster. After a few moments, Stiles heard the gun safe creak open, then clang shut, and Mom's booted footsteps headed through the hall and pounded up the stairs.

Glory came in before Mom came back down. She settled down by Bark — who was still at Stiles's feet, as stretched out as an arthritic old dog could be between the sofa and coffee table — and stretched into a play bow. Bark ignored her, apparently not in the mood for the long process of standing up, getting away from the coffee table, and then putting his creaky old joints to work playing with a puppy. Stiles leaned down and scritched him behind the ear.

"Laura had something to show you," Stiles said, when Mom came back downstairs in jeans and a soft-looking sweater.

Before Mom could answer him, Glory whined at Bark for ignoring her. Mom snapped, "Glory, fe," while Stiles said, "Good dog, Bark."

The yearling puppy stopped whining, her entire body slouching at Mom's rebuke. Mom let her cringe for a solid minute, long enough to make her point, before she reached down and trailed her fingers along one of Glory's ears.

"Glory, sit," Mom said, and then, "Good dog, Glory."

Bark thumped his tail, and Mom smiled her helpless, dealing-with-ridiculous-dogs smile and said, "Dobry pies, Bark."

Stiles grinned up at her. "Seriously, though. Laura had something to show you and was, like, all mysterious about it. Whatever secret the Hales are sitting on, I'm going to figure it out sooner or later."

"Later," she replied. "Definitely later. You warming up dinner?"

"Yeah, I put the gołąbki in for you. If it tastes like weird flowers, it's because Laura decided to dry her verbena in our oven."

Mom sighed. "Of course she did. Alright — don't ask questions! Damnit, Stiles, I'm trying to keep you _safe_ — I'll visit her loft before I head in tomorrow. Keep an eye on Glory, will you? I'm going to go work with Eli. Let me know if your Dad comes home early."

* * *

Stiles had just dragged Bark away from the chainlink fence in the back yard, where the old dog had been shoving his nose through the wire to sniff Eli, when Mom came home for lunch.

"Bark tried to eat Eli's face again."

Mom wrinkled her nose. "He did not."

Okay, he hadn't, but. "Eli growled at him."

"I'm going to kill Danielewski," Mom snarled. "The patrol car fuckwittery was bad enough, but letting the patrol training lapse..." She trailed off, but they both knew what she wasn't saying.

Even with Mom's careful rehab work with Eli, he might still be a serious liability. The kind of liability that didn't ever get back in the K-9 vest — and instead was quietly retired out to a former handler, or someone who had experience handling large, unpredictable dogs. He was bad enough that Stiles and Dad weren't allowed near him at all, and the department's only full-bred Malinois spent most of his time in a dog run.

"Well, at least you got to fire him yourself," Stiles said. "How's Laura? And what are the flowers for?"

"I went by the loft, but I didn't see her. Saw bundles of dried flowers hanging in her windows, though."

"Weird," Stiles said.

Dad strode into the room, already in his uniform and with his utility belt on, though minus his gun. So he probably wasn't as tired as he seemed when he stared blearily at the French press on the counter.

"There's no coffee," he said. "Stiles, didn't I ask you to brew some coffee last night?"

"Nope," Stiles said. "I was in bed by, like, ten."

Dad cast a cynical eye his way, then grunted and fired up the automatic coffee maker.

* * *

Laura never answered any of Mom's calls.

She still hadn't answered, or been at her house, by the weekend before Stiles's school year was supposed to start.

So Stiles texted Derek: _Heard from laura?_

 _Not since last Friday_ , Derek replied.

_What would she use verbena for?_

Derek's reply of _Who knows_ filled him with absolutely no confidence whatsoever.

 _You should come back down_.

_Planned on it. Wolf moon this month. Important to L and C._

_If your mom inducted my mom into some sort of freaky witch cult, i'm going to be so mad_

_We're not witches._

_Then what the hell even are you??????_

But Derek didn't answer. Derek never answered that question. When he asked in person, Stiles kind of got the feeling that Derek wanted to answer, wanted to stop with the mysterious secrets and blatant lies. But Derek apparently didn't think he was allowed, or maybe he thought — like Mom did — that keeping Stiles in the dark meant keeping him safe.

* * *

The Sunday before school started again, two hikers found half a body in the woods. Stiles spent most of the afternoon monitoring his parents' movements as much as he could. Eventually, Mom crated Glory and got out Lona's "on duty" lead and harness from the closet.

Lona panted happily as Mom hooked her into the harness and affixed the leash.

"Stay here," Dad said as he came down the stairs. "Don't leave the house, not even to visit Eli. If Bark's not out back, keep the dog door bolted shut."

"He's got no business near Eli, anyway," Mom said, but Dad just arched his brows in her direction, as if to point out how rarely their kid paid any attention to being where he had 'business.'

"Dad," Stiles asked. "Is it Laura?"

Mom and Dad exchanged a look. For a moment, pain flickered across Mom's face, distorting her delicate brow and wrinkling the upturned nose he'd inherited. Dad winced.

"We don't know," he said.

"Did you call Derek?"

"He's driving down. He'll be here by morning."

Stiles watched his parents, wearing their uniforms and what he'd always kind of seen as superhero alter egos — The Sheriff and Deputy Sierzant Stilinski — head out the door and into the cold, misty dusk.

Bark watched them go and, as he always did when Mom and Dad both left without him, let out a single soft, short whine.

Stiles counted the hours. The silence from Laura felt like a buzzing under his skin, the fear that she might actually be dead driving back and forth like a butter churn in his stomach. It worsened when the sun went down; by nine, he found himself pacing, restless, and looking resentfully out the window to the back yard, where the treeline cast its dark shadow. 

When his parents weren't back and hadn't called by eleven, when he hadn't heard from Laura, when Derek's only text in hours had been a terse, angry-seeming _Driving_ , he grabbed Bark's leash and the keys to the Jeep and jangled on out the door.

* * *

Stiles stared at the light in the window at Scott's house. Until the summer before freshman year — almost two years ago now, the summer of 2009 — it had been the Delgado house. But then Mrs. McCall had inherited the house from Mrs. Delgado, and Scott had moved to Beacon Hills full time. And now Scott was fucking around in his room, getting ready for the first day of his second semester of sophomore year.

It was completely weird to have his summers-only friend in town year round, but now wasn't the time to think about that. Now was the time to think about Laura, about the possibility that she was the half-body the hikers had found. Now was the time to pray, as he'd never really prayed in his life, that it wasn't her.

His gaze drifted to the cell phone on the passenger seat, but Scott would probably ignore a call. So he slung the Jeep's door open, grabbed Bark's leash and clipped it to his broad, braided collar. He dropped the leash by the oak tree. Bark sat without prompting and watched as Stiles climbed the tree and onto the overhang that would take him to Scott's window. He tried to pick his way carefully along the roof, but the evening dew had turned to invisible frost, and he didn't have the traction to stay upright, never mind on the roof.

He went down with a thump, wound up rolling across sandpapery tar and scraping up his face, plunged head-first off the overhang. He kicked out at the last minute, tangling his foot in the drain pipe, and just barely managed not to completely fall. He also managed to hold in a manful scream.

Instead, Bark looked up at him like he was crazy — and, honestly, he probably was — and let out a hoarse woof. When Stiles did not immediately right himself and start acting like a normal human, to Stiles's dismay, he started to whine.

"Oh god, Bark, fe! Fe! _No whining_!" Mom would actually kill him if Bark picked up Glory's whining habit.

That was the moment Scott ventured out onto his porch with a baseball bat clutched loosely in one hand. "Stiles? What the hell are you doing?"

Stiles was still upside down. Scott had a baseball bat. Bark whined again, then started up his 'put down that weapon if you're going to be near my handler, you vile eater of Doritos' warning growl. What the hell was his life?

So he heaved himself back up onto the overhang, then carefully climbed down and dropped to the porch before he bothered to explain himself.

"Laura hasn't been home in a week and a couple of hikers found, like, half a body in the woods."

"Stiles, it's, like, midnight. School starts in the morning." Scott gave him a look that tried and managed to express just how profoundly none of this was Scott's problem.

"Scott. Laura is missing, and hikers found half a body in the woods." Stiles wasn't sure how much clearer he needed to be.

"And you need to make sure it isn't her." Comprehension dawned, and Scott's expression turned eager. "Okay! Uh, we'll need flash lights. Where do you want to start looking?"

Stiles thought for a moment before he said, "The construction site out in the Preserve. Come on."

* * *

Scott grabbed an extra flashlight and a coat, and Stiles helped Bark load up into the Jeep's backseat. The old dog's back legs didn't want to work as well in the cold, thanks to his arthritis, and it actually kind of hurt to watch him tremble as he tried to make the jump.

"Good boy," Stiles said, ruffling the fur behind Bark's pointy ears, then grabbing an ear and running his thumb gently along the soft, short fur.

Just before Stiles turned the key in the ignition, Scott piped up with, "Hey, should we run by Laura's loft and grab something of hers for Bark?"

Scott usually asked his questions before Stiles could actually start the Jeep. There was almost no point trying to talk when the engine was running; it kept up a constant rumble that rarely let passengers hear themselves think, much less actually follow a conversation.

Stiles stared. "Why would Bark need anything of Laura's?"

"You know, to track." Scott looked back at him like what he meant was obvious. After a minute, when Stiles considered what most people understood about K-9 units, it really was clear.

Stiles groaned, headdesking into the steering wheel. "There's so much wrong with what you just said I'm not sure where to start."

"He's a police dog. Can't he just —"

"One, no, he can't, because he was a patrol dog. He was basically a four-legged deputy, not a drug dog or a search dog. Two, he's retired. Three, I don't think I could even get into Laura's loft."

"Oh. Then why are you bringing him?"

"Because I wasn't supposed to leave the house. So now at least I have a retired police dog and my best friend around. Safety in numbers and all that."

"Oh."

"Bark won't be tracking much of anything, and he doesn't run so good anymore, but he can still probably eat a guy's face off if he has to." Stiles didn't go into the jaw strength and bite force an angry German Shepard could muster.

Scott nodded like that made sense, and Stiles started up the Jeep.

The trip to the Preserve was mercifully short, punctuated mostly by Bark flattening his ears when Stiles shifted gears, and Scott's shouted attempt at questions almost drowned out by the engine. Stiles listed the facts: Laura worried about something in the woods, Laura gone and not answering her phone, dead body discovered today, Derek driving down from Seattle.

From what Stiles could tell, Scott agreed that the facts, as they stood, didn't add up to anything good.

The construction site looked almost the same as always, if he didn't count the fact that it was about ten times creepier. All the equipment was silvered by moonlight, the shadows deeper. The forest cast its own pool of darkness over the clearing, and the darkness spread a pall that seemed to dampen sound. The burnt out, only half-there shell of the old Hale house creaked ominously in a forest that seemed too silent.

At the far edge of the clearing, so deep in the shadow of the trees that it was only visible by the faint glint of moonlight against the metal, was Laura's Camaro.

Stiles didn't bother with Bark's leash as he helped the old dog out from the Jeep. If they went into the woods, the underbrush would be a serious risk, and it wasn't like Bark was in the habit of running off.

Scott grabbed one of the flashlights from under his seat and swept it around the site.

"Just looks muddy," Scott said. Then, "Hey, I think there's something on her car."

Stiles grabbed the other flashlight and they headed toward the car. They were maybe five or ten feet away when just what Laura or someone else had left came clear: clothes. A dark shirt and jeans, neatly folded with a bra and underwear on top, lay on the windshield, trapped by the windshield wipers. She'd left a pair of boots, laces tucked inside, next to the front tire. A thick white sock peeked out from each boot.

Stiles swept the flashlight's beam into the car. She'd draped a scarf over the back of the passenger seat and left her distinctive red bomber jacket in the seat.

"Holy shit," Scott said. "She walked naked and barefoot into the woods? With no coat?"

"It's too neat," Stiles said. "Nobody, like, made her do that. She left her clothes here because she wanted to, and she planned on coming back."

"It's like thirty degrees out. You never told me she was crazy," Scott said. "We should go after her."

"Let's split up. We'll cover more ground, maybe find her faster."

Scott shined his flashlight in Stiles's eyes, making him wince. "Are _you_ crazy? What if there's, like, an axe murderer in there or something?"

"There are no axe murderers. I'd have heard about them by now." 

Stiles thought back to his father's insistence that he stay in the house, that he not even venture into the back yard. Okay, so Mom and Dad definitely thought something was going on. But it probably wasn't _serial murder_ , because seriously, that kind of shit would be newsworthy. Beacon County's murder rate was basically nonexistent. Somebody would have gone to the Beacon Tribune — if not something statewide — or Dad would have brought the files home.

"Look, we'll stay on the phone with each other. You go left, I'll go right. We'll meet at Hale Creek, and if we haven't found anything, we'll come back here, and I'll take you home."

Scott stared at him for a good few seconds. When he wanted, he could be insightful and supportive, and apparently right now, Scott wanted to. Stiles got the feeling he was being read closely, and then, after a long moment, his best friend sighed and said, "Okay. We'll do it your way. But let's trade flashlights."

Of course he wanted Stiles's MagLite. Then again, it was only fair. Stiles had a retired police dog perfectly capable of killing a man. The least he could do was give Scott a halfway decent weapon.

With that, they ventured into the dark woods, and Stiles spared a second to think that maybe this was one of the dumbest things he'd ever done. But the idea of going back to the house, of calling his parents and saying he'd found Laura's clothes and car at the construction site, and then sitting on the couch and waiting for word — no. He couldn't do it.

He needed to find her. He needed to _know_. It felt almost like the forest had put hooks in him, was pulling him, inexorably, toward where he thought Laura was.

* * *

Stiles picked his way through the woods, trying to move quietly through the underbrush, trying to place his feet carefully. Bark paced alongside him, wary and watchful. The dog's steps were silent despite the dry brush and dead leaves; his eyes glinted faintly in the light that fell, scattered, from between the dead branches of the trees above them.

Eventually, he stopped being able to hear Scott's footfalls. After ten minutes or so, his phone rang.

"I'm not seeing anything," Scott said.

"Me either. Let's keep looking. Call if you find anything."

Scott added, "Or when I reach the creek. And you'd better call if you find anything; I'm not wandering out here alone all night."

Stiles said, "Duh," and hung up. He reached down and rested his palm on the top of Bark's head, lightly ruffling his ears, scritching at the dog's brow with his fingertips. Bark huffed out a breath in pleasure at the contact, let Stiles scritch for a little while before jerking his head and licking at Stiles's fingers.

"Let's find Laura," he told Bark, and got moving again.

* * *

Stiles had half-expected the creek to freeze tonight, thanks to the crystallizing fog his breath left in the air, but it was deep enough, moved quickly enough, that he could still hear its rustle. The sound lapped at his ears. Stiles swung the flashlight around, and saw nothing but moon-silvered water, washing over stone in a clicking, burbling hurry.

Bark swayed his way out to the edge, sank low enough to dip his head and drink.

"Scott?" Stiles called out. "Laura?"

Somewhere near, bushes rustled and a twig snapped, and Stiles whirled. The flashlight's beam caught a dark jacket, a pale, shaven cheek, and an eye that burned blue, and then someone's hands had fisted in his jacket, and his back smacked into a tree.

His heart pounded, and his breath came in short gasps.

The flashlight dropped from nerveless fingers, and Bark let out loud, quick warning woofs. It was the patrol dog equivalent of _Hey! Hey! Hey! Cut that shit out!_ That he wasn't growling or lunging meant — meant what? That Stiles wasn't in actual danger? That he wasn't scared enough for Bark to intervene?

"What the _hell_ are you doing out here?" The person holding him snarled in Derek's voice.

"Derek?! Holy shit! Did you go crazy, too? Put me down!"

But Derek didn't put him down. Instead, he shoved Stiles's back closer against the tree, his fists spasming as they clenched in the fabric of his coat. "Didn't your parents warn you to stay home?"

"Well, yeah, but. Seriously, dude, put me down." Even through all the layers he was wearing, Stiles could feel the heat of Derek's skin.

Derek shoved him again. "Then _why_ are you _out_ here? You could get yourself killed!"

"I don't — I mean, I had to —" Stiles tried, in vain, to find the words for 'it was driving me so crazy, it felt like buzzing under my skin.' There weren't any words for the way the forest had pulled him, either. "I just had to _know_. One way or another. It was driving me crazy."

Derek dropped him, reached out and brushed. He tilted his head, regarding Stiles, his green eyes almost colorless in the moonlight, and then said, wondering, "Of course. You're feeling it, too. I _knew_ we should have told you."

"Told me what?" Stiles reached forward, pressing his palms against Derek's shoulders and shoving. "You _all_ knew what was going on this whole time, and none of you told me anything?"

But Derek's head jerked to look at something upstream. He tilted his head, listening, and in the weak light, Stiles saw him take in a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth. Derek's eyes narrowed, and he took a breath with an open mouth.

"Your friend is hurt," Derek snapped. Then he grabbed Stiles's wrist and hauled the teen off upstream.

The forest passed by in a dizzying whirl of overhead branches, of pale clouds, a weak moon, weaker stars. Derek apparently could see well enough to keep from slamming Stiles into any trees, though he forged through the underbrush without regard. Bark followed behind them, baying his head off (probably in a demand for Derek to let go of his second favorite human), which was sure to draw the attention of his parents. And the rest of the Beacon County Sheriff's Department.

At last, they reached a clearing, where Scott lay crumpled on the ground, his back sprawling against a tree. His red hoodie stood out like a beacon in the washed out dimness, and his usually tan skin looked pale and jaundiced in the flashlight's beam.

"He's bleeding," Derek said, matter-of-fact, like it made perfect sense that he could tell.

Stiles moved forward, swept a hand up and down Scott's jeans and then onto his hoodie, trying to find a slick spot. He found it in Scott's side, thick blood welling dark and sticky under the thin fabric, where something had taken a chunk out of his best friend. Stiles pressed his palm there, then stripped out of his own jacket to pull his sweatshirt off. He pressed the sweatshirt against the flow of blood, tried to maintain pressure.

All the while, Stiles was pretty sure he was babbling. But Derek just stood behind him, silent and apparently not moving. Listening, probably, or maybe sniffing the air or some other weird thing.

Bark, once he reached the clearing, immediately shoved his nose in at Stiles's sweatshirt, then let out a soft whine and licked Stiles's face.

Derek let Stiles freak out for a minute or so, then strode forward, boots heavy on the dirt, and shoved Stiles out of the way. Stiles went sprawling to the side, and Derek lifted Scott bridal style. The other teen lay limp in Derek's arms, limbs flopping uselessly, like a puppet with its strings cut.

"We should, like, call an ambulance. Or take him to a hospital," Stiles said.

Derek looked down at Scott, and Stiles could have sworn his nostrils flared for a second. After a minute, Derek said, "No. Call your parents; I'm taking him back to the house."

And then Derek took off into the woods, moving as heedlessly through brambles and around trees as he had before. Stiles followed at a more careful pace, while Bark walked alongside him, occasionally whuffing his displeasure.

When they reached the construction site, Derek loaded Scott into the open trunk of his Toyota, which he'd parked behind the Jeep. Stiles helped Bark in, then climbed in after them and started trying to keep pressure on Scott's bite.

* * *

Both Mom and Dad were home by the time Derek reached the house. Mom had Lona on her work lead and was standing almost at a parade rest. Dad, on the other hand, had his arms crossed over his chest, his face stony.

Derek was out of the driver's seat in a flash, opening the trunk. He picked up Scott again, still bridal style, and left Stiles to help Bark down. Mom stared at the trail of blood Derek and Scott left on the concrete driveway, then looked intently back at Scott's pale face. 

"How bad is it?" Dad asked, while Mom drifted forward to press the back of her hand against Scott's forehead. "And why the hell didn't you take him to a hospital?"

"He's been bitten," Derek said. The way his voice gave weight to the word almost sounded like he was capitalizing it in his head. "I smelled another wolf on him. Familiar, but weird."

"There aren't wolves in California," Stiles said, voice numb, because _what the actual hell_.

But Dad held up a hand. "Is he going to change? Was it a, whatever, an alpha that bit him?"

"Yeah," Derek said. His voice was bleak, a little hoarse. "He'll change, or he'll die."

Dad scrubbed one hand down his face. "Jesus. Get him inside. How's the bleeding?"

"Slowing down," Stiles said. "I don't know if that's good or bad. And what do you mean, change? Change into _what_?"

"I don't either," Dad replied. His eyes narrowed and his face shuttered in a way that meant there would be a reckoning later, when the crisis was over. "Come on, let's get Scott somewhere warm and see if that bite needs stitches."

"If he's going to live, it won't," Derek said, though he gamely started toward the house. "It'll be healed on its own in two days."

"Bites don't heal that fast," Stiles said, and then asked, again, "And what's he supposed to change into?"

Dad snapped, "A werewolf, Stiles. Now get in the damn house."

Stiles went into the house, too thrown by his dad tossing around the word 'werewolf' to even argue, automatically following Derek to the kitchen. He heard Dad slam Derek's trunk closed, then close the front door behind them. In the kitchen, Derek laid Scott on the table, and Mom grabbed a first aid kit.

By the time they got Scott's hoodie and shirt off, the bleeding had slowed to a mere trickle, and then a gentle ooze. Mom smeared antibiotic on the bite marks — holy crap, Scott had even bruised around the punctures, mottled and violently purple and black; Stiles felt sick — and then covered the bite with a bandage.

"Take him to Stiles's room and leave your jacket with him," Mom told Derek. "We'll reintroduce the two of you by scent."

Derek stared at Mom like she was crazy.

"Don't argue with me. In the morning, you and I are going to have coffee and discuss the alpha who bit Scott. _And_ what it means that it wasn't your sister."

"Werewolves," Stiles said. "Seriously, you're _werewolves_? Howl at the moon, silver bullets, hair problem? That's a thing? That's a real thing?"

Huh. No wonder the wolf moon was always so important to Laura and Derek. And, in the distant, ragged edge of his mind that wasn't boiling over with carefully constructed Google search strings, he realized that it explained so, so, _so_ much about both Laura and Derek, and why the dogs had never been at ease around them.

Werewolves. Seriously. Stiles wasn't sure if his life had just been ruined — or if his life had just turned completely awesome. Maybe it all depended on Scott.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now things get _very_ different, _very_ quickly. Claudia being alive was one snowball of changes, but Claudia, Stiles, and the Sheriff not only knowing about werewolves but being on the Hales' side? Dios mio, we're in a for a bumpy ride.
> 
> RE: Timing: Huh, did I say Monday? I clearly meant 'ASAP.'
> 
> For those curious as to why Bark isn't being more protective: he's a trained patrol dog, which means he has a very specific temperament. K-9 officers who attack without their handler being in very clear danger do not long stay K-9 officers -- and Stiles is neither Bark's handler nor a small child he's been tasked with protecting, and Derek has been around Bark for six years now. Had Derek been a stranger, had he laid hands on Claudia, or had Stiles been younger (or more afraid than startled), that scene would have gone _very_ differently.
> 
> 'Fe,' by the way, is a correction word used in Polish K-9 training. (It's not, so far as I can tell, 'no.' It's just a correction noise.) 'Dobry pies,' translates to, 'Good dog.' It's also worth noting that so far as I know, American police and military forces don't get their K-9 dogs from Polish kennels -- and Claudia only justifies it in universe with a family discount that the Sheriff lets slide. If Agent McCall ever makes an appearance, he will probably have a field day with the fact that the Sheriff's wife is the K-9 Training Director and imports her dogs from a kennel owned by her family.
> 
> /TheMoreYouKnow.gif


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